Frank Mulligan: Biting honesty or tall tail, er, tale?

Wednesday

Mar 31, 2010 at 12:01 AMMar 31, 2010 at 12:02 PM

It’s widely held that the sense of smell can conjure strong memories, but who knew cute pet pictures could have the same effect? Two weeks after the submitted picture of a white pet rat brought back my brief career as a lab assistant struggling with unhappy albino lab rats, the picture of the winner of our paper's cute-pet contest – a handsome former racing greyhound named Remi – brought back an even deeper memory.

Frank Mulligan

It’s widely held that the sense of smell can conjure strong memories, but who knew cute pet pictures could have the same effect? Two weeks after the submitted picture of a white pet rat brought back my brief career as a lab assistant struggling with unhappy albino lab rats, the picture of the winner of our paper's cute-pet contest – a handsome former racing greyhound named Remi – brought back an even deeper memory.

It was a period in my youth in which I was constantly being hounded, er, persecuted by dogs.

Exaggeration, you say?

Well, how about this?

I was one of 200 kids playing in a field roughly the size of a Wal-Mart super center parking lot in the back of school during recess when a black Lab decided to join in the fun.

His version of fun was to single me out, knock me to the ground, and drag me back and forth by my pants’ leg for the next 45 minutes.

All right, it probably wasn’t 45 minutes, but it was a long time.

The dog apparently had connections because it was explained to me that it meant no harm and hadn’t actually broken any skin though my pants had acquired a decidedly chewed quality. I was told he was being sent to the country, but even in my extreme youth I harbored suspicions that he was going to escape prosecution.

Or how about this?

I’m riding my bike along a quiet street and I was, as the saying goes, minding my own business, when a black-and-white, mixed breed bounded out of his yard and bit me on the leg.

His owner explained that it wasn’t the dog’s fault. The poor animal was constantly being teased by other kids and was bound to bite somebody. Chance happened to decree that I was to be the recipient. The dog’s owner felt the matter to be settled, and I pedaled off with a bleeding leg and lesson in the vagaries of fate.

My next tetanus shot came courtesy of my first girlfriend’s dog, Freckles, an angry brute that only an owner could love who also seemed to resent my relationship with his owner. I have to admit, he bided his time. He was always chained to the porch in his front yard, and I always kept well outside his attack zone.

Until one day, lost in a game of soccer on the street, I strayed within his perimeter, and he bit me in the arm.

It was explained to me on the way to the hospital that Freckles was high strung and all the play in the street had agitated him. But I knew the truth. He was simply out to get me.

You may think this is all coincidence, but explain this:

Every weekday I would ride my bike to football practice partially clad in my uniform, which made the ride a bit unsteady. And every weekday an enormous beast resembling a timber wolf would wait for me to pass so he could leap out snarling and snapping at me and quite nearly push me into oncoming cars on what was a busy secondary highway.

He was clearly trying to kill me.

Until one day he pushed his own luck too far and was struck by a car instead of his intended victim.

The car pulled over and turned out to be occupied by five fully habit-clad nuns who seemed deeply aggrieved for having struck Cujo’s first cousin.

I was late for practice so I kept on going but wanted to tell the ladies that they were clearly part of divine intervention in my behalf and shouldn’t feel bad.

The incident also seemed to lift the curse and I never felt hounded, er, persecuted by man’s best friend again.